Democrats plan vote to define procedures for Trump impeachment investigation

Update: The Judiciary Committee vote has been moved to Thursday.

The House Judiciary Committee will hold a procedural vote Wednesday that will define the boundaries of what the committee’s chairman said is an ongoing “impeachment investigation” of President Donald Trump.

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While the language of the resolution is not yet set, Politico is reporting that the vote could include a provision for more time for questioning witnesses as well as a means to provide more access to the president's attorneys.

Another provision in the resolution would allow committee chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, to decide if hearings will be held before the full committee or in subcommittees. The use of subcommittees would allow the committee to move faster through hearings, The New York Times pointed out.

The resolution will also likely call for allowing discussion of evidence in closed sessions, which could include grand jury testimony, and will allow Don McGahn and other of the president's attorneys to respond in writing to questions about evidence or testimony that the committee receives.

The procedural vote is not new, it was done in the 1970s when the House began consideration of impeachment of President Richard Nixon and again in 1990 before Republicans impeached President Bill Clinton.

Republicans on the committee have objected to Nadler’s call for the procedural vote.

“If they really want to do this, they have to bring impeachment to the floor,” the ranking Republican member on the committee, Rep. Doug Collins, Georgia, said on Fox News on Sunday. “This is simply a show. It is a travesty. And, frankly, they should be ashamed.”

  

 

Nadler said in August that the committee had already initiated impeachment proceedings, though no formal impeachment vote has taken place. In legal filings, the committee has told a judge that the congressional oversight investigation had turned its focus towards whether to recommend articles of impeachment be brought against Trump.

The resolution is expected to be finalized Monday and voted on Wednesday.

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